Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Simone Signoret was the first French person to ever get an Academy
Award, winning Best Actress for her role in 1959’s tragic drama Room at the Top, beating out Doris Day,
Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Katherine Hepburn. I had never heard of her. Signoret had a penchant for playing
prostitutes and mistresses in her younger days, and she and her husband Yves
Montand (who has a small but important role in 1969’s Best Foreign Film Z) are considered two of France’s great
film stars.

Momo and Rosa

Madame Rosa came almost 20 years
after her Oscar, and while she had aged and gained weight, the title role in
this film required her do ramp it up a bit with some extra milkshakes and
French fries.It’s method acting at its
extreme, most famously done by Robert De Niro for Raging Bull, when he added 60 pounds to play boxer Jake
LaMotta.But Signoret’s commitment to
the physical requirements of the role is only indicative of how committed she
was to the emotional aspects of playing the part.She is not an attractive character to watch, either in a
physical sense nor as a person, but when all is said and done, Signoret is what
makes this a film worth watching.

Simone Signoret in her Oscar role, with Lawrence Harvey

The character Madame Rosa is not really a madam for prostitutes,
per se, but she once was in the biz.She’s
retired and now spends her time raising the children of other prostitutes.Rosa was a Holocaust survivor, having once
lived in Auschwitz, and you can tell she is as tough as they come.She is raising a bunch of kids the mothers
can’t take care of themselves, and treats them all as if they were hers.

The main relationship in the movie is between Rosa and Momo, a
10-year-old Muslim kid, and the oldest of the bunch.Though Rosa is Jewish, she feels the
responsibility to raise Momo in his own faith, though she openly gives her
opinions on that faith.Rosa becomes
older and sicker as time goes on, while Momo matures into a fine young man.

The film is gritty, both visually and emotionally, as Rosa
struggles through her life.She loves
the

Thin Raging Bull

kids, but is beginning to lose her ability to function because of her
health, both physically and mentally--in fact, she is afraid of being arrested and being
sent back to Auschwitz. Because of her frailties and her descent into dementia,
roles reverse and it is Momo who gradually becomes the caretaker.This is a film about
transcending cultural differences of religion and ethnicity.Rosa and Momo love each other in a time their
peoples hate each other so much.

Israeli Director Moshé Mizrahi, who would go on to direct Tom
Hanks in one of his earliest films, 1986’s Every
Time We Say Goodbye, does a fine job.The framing of Rosa’s sixth-floor apartment evinces claustrophobia for the
viewer and the washed-out look of the film emphasizes the difficulty of the
environment for Rosa and for the kids.But it is Signoret’s acting that shines in this film.Her every move feels like a burden, most
underscored by her having to climb that six flights to her apartment.Every word she utters seems like a chore and
she makes you wish her life could have been easier somehow.Whatever her acting method, the milkshakes
and extra fries paid off.

The
Title:French title was La vie devant soi, which correlates to the 1975 Romain Gary novel
on which the film is based, The Life
Before Us.

The
Culture:This one examines the long term effects of
the Holocaust in post-war Europe, and deals with some heavy themes like
Jewish-Arab relations.

Agenda
danger:It’s not heavy-handed, but of course there is
a bit of the “can’t we all just get along?” thing going here.

Best
Picture that year:Annie
Hall

Rating:This isn’t for everyone.But as a character study it’s interesting,
and the relationship between Rosa and Momo is moving.A nice, quiet film worth watching for the
relationships and for the acting.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression.A 2011 WHO study found that French people are
the most likely to have a “major depressive episode” sometime in their lives.Depression is treated with medications like Prozac,
Zoloft, Lexapro; psychotherapy and the occasional electro-shock therapy are
also standard ways to work through this very pervasive and common disorder.

In Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Raoul, played by Gerard Depardieu,
introduces us to a new way to handle the problem.Raoul’s wife, Solange, is so depressed she
doesn’t even to seem to care that she is depressed.We first meet the couple over a salad lunch
at a small restaurant.Raoul expresses
to Solange his total love for her and his complete frustration that she will
not snap out of her funk.Raoul sees
that across the restaurant, a shaggy looking patron had been checking out his
rather attractive wife.Nothing overt,
just a casual glance or two from the man, but now Raoul believes he has a
cure for what ails her.Why not ask this man to have sex
with his wife?That should clear up the
cobwebs or whatever is going on in her pretty little head!

Raoul, Stephane, and Solange

The man, Stephane, at first is
a little weirded out.But Solange doesn’t seem to
object, and Raoul the husband is the one asking him, and she's kinda hot, so what the hell?So for the next part of the movie Raoul
and his new bestie Stephane take turns (off camera) having sex with Solange to
get her to cheer up a little.Mostly, she
sits around the house without a shirt, sometimes knitting to keep busy (though never a top for herself), but still depressed as she ever was.

Besides sharing Solange, Stephane and Raoul share a love of
Mozart and talk about what it would be like to meet him.They also befriend a local grocer and share
with him their love of Mozart and their arrangement with Solange.They try to include her in their discussions
and interests, but Solange just isn’t feeling it.Then Raoul has another bright idea.Why don’t he and Solange accompany Stephane,
a teacher, for a few weeks at the children’s camp he works at?The three go there and befriend a 13-year-old
oddball named Christian.Christian is
much smarter than the rest of the kids and isn’t afraid to show it.Which generally doesn’t make him popular with
the other kids.Solange, however, takes
a shine to him.And well, without giving
too much away, this is where the film devolves from a slightly depraved sitcom
of a movie to one that may make you feel like you have to take a shower after
viewing.

Christian watching Solange knit in bed

Get
Out Your Handkerchiefs is genuinely funny at times, and
Depardieu as Raoul and Patrick Dewaere are a good buddy-movie combo (sadly, Dewaere seems to have been the one with real demons, as he took his own life in 1982).Carole Laure as Solange is cute as a button,
even when she isn’t smiling, which is most of the movie (and speaking of buttons,Solange doesn’t have any need for them during
much of the movie).As strange as the,
er, threesome are, all of them are likable and fun to watch together.But I just didn’t buy that even in 1970’s
France this kind of stuff would happen.And because of that, the humor is muted and whatever point being made by
director Bertrand Blieris rendered absurd.However likeable the trio may be, their choices make them nincompoops,
however good-intentioned they seem.I
think I came out of this film as depressed as Solange was, except I had my
shirt on for the entire movie.

Solange most of the movie. Call me a prude, but I added the black box.

The
Title:Préparez
vos mouchoirs.They should have
called this, “Get Out Your Boobies.”

The
Culture:If France was a swinging, conventions-be-damned
kinda place in the 1970’s, then this film reflects it well.While he wasn’t French, Mozart is discussed
at length.

Agenda
danger:I suppose I could be called a prude for
seeing the movie as a push to normalize non-standard sexual relationships.But I was able to buy into the movie’s first half
as all-in-good-fun; it was the last act that left me feeling it would have been
okay if this film had never been made.

Best
Picture that year:The
Deer Hunter

Rating:I’ll admit liking this movie for most of it for the humor and for the odd friendship between the three
main players.I think at first even
Christian and the trio's relation to him was charming.But when the film was over, I just shook my
head over what had just happened and lost any fondness I had for any of them.